


sweet dreams are made of this (who am i to disagree?)

by juulies (nnegan13)



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex/Willie background, F/M, Julie and the boys figuring out how their ghost powers work, Luke is high-key in love with Julie and he's bad at hiding it, Multi-POV, Swearing, but it's primarily gonna be from Julie's pov, everyone being absolutely nonsensical, gasp the unfinished business is still unfinished, how in the hell is the band gonna work if the boys can't be "holograms" anymore, lol, power speculation, tangibility is tricky business, the consequences of escaping Caleb's club, they all share one brain cell and Flynn has it most of the time, this is gonna be a serious ™ fic ig
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26687752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nnegan13/pseuds/juulies
Summary: “Yes, better,” she said and glared at him. “How do you even know about any of this? It was my dream.”“Ourdream, I saw it too.”No, no, no, no, no. This wasbad.~You can't exactly escape a musical ghost club without consequences.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 72
Kudos: 314





	1. i mean, did we really rule out the idea that Julie’s a witch?

**Author's Note:**

> essentially this started as an idea for a fic about Julie + the boys navigating their ever evolving ghost powers. then plot got involved. 
> 
> un-betaed we die like men 
> 
> fic title from "sweet dreams" by the Eurythmics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/1: lmao was debating whether or not I wanted to add this and then decided that I did! anyways, song for this chapter, specifically during Julie's dream, is "home" by daughter

The lights around her were blinding, bright even for stage lights, vibrant yellows and pinks and blues, and Julie forced herself not to squint, to keep her smile on her face, to ignore the sweat beading on her brow. This was a performance, no one in the audience wanted an insight into how uncomfortable it could be; they just wanted the glitz and glam, the fantastic music of the club, and the excitement of the afterlife. She had to pull through.

Caleb, dancing his way around the stage with the twins bedecked in orange on either side of him, caught her eye and furrowed his brow for an instant, his eyes hard, before he turned back to the audience with a jovial smile on his face.

Definitely, she had to pull through.

Rather than focusing on the lights, she turned her attention to the music and the keys of the grand piano under her fingers. She counted under her breath, ignored the plastic rhinestones of her costume digging into her ribs, and shot a dazzling smile across the stage, her fingers bouncing and her body swaying as she played. It was perfect, as usual, and would continue to be; there wasn’t any other way.

The keys for the flats and sharps were shiny black and glistened with polish and sweat from her fingers, and her hands flew over them, playing fast and hard to match the quick step of the dancers. Splayed across the stage, the band glittered in tones of reds, oranges, and golds, a fire burning up everything else in her vision, and the music resonating back to where her piano stood on stage right pounded in her head. Her pulse matched it as she continued to play, continued to become one with the orchestra, the house band. It was perfect.

They were perfect. She had to—

Luke met her eyes across the stage.

Wait, that wasn’t right. They were supposed to have—

“Julie.” He was there, suddenly, standing in the curve of the piano, one hand planted on the lid, reaching toward her. Compared to the jewel tones of the band, the classy black and white of the audience, and even her own fantastic costume of yellow tulle and plumage, Luke was shockingly out of place in his ripped jeans, cutoff T-shirt, and orange beanie.

What was he doing here?

Her head pounded, the volume of the music began to rise, crowding out any other sound in the room, and her fingers didn’t even slip on the keys as Luke said her name again. _That_ was definitely not right; even she wasn’t good enough to play smoothly through a surprise like this. Her brows furrowed and he looked at her earnestly, tapping his fingers against the lid. His rings clicked against the glossy surface and her gaze traveled down to his hand. Knobby fingers, his rings, his bracelets, the skin of his forearm clear of any stamp or brand. She looked at her own hands; her rings were gone, a delicate silver chain with yellow gems that matched the shade of her costume lay on her right wrist and as the song ended with a bang, she turn her hand palm up and examined the purple stamp on her forearm.

What the—?

“Julie, my dear,” Caleb said, rounding the piano to stand next to her bench. Abruptly, she turned her hand back over, straightened her spine, and looked up at him. He only had eyes for her, he didn’t even acknowledge Luke, who’s fist curled, who hissed her name. Good, Caleb shouldn’t see him. If he saw Luke, that would be disastrous, he would—

What? What would he do?

“Let’s move on to the swing, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Fantastic,” he said and patted her cheek with a smile. In his eyes she could see a tiger, prowling closer to his prey, for just a flash before the skin around his eyes crinkled and he winked at her. As he turned back to the audience, gesturing and yelling and stirring them up into excitement once more, a chill ran down her spine. Her fingers started dancing across the keys again as the band roared back to life and she pressed her lips together as she watched her body move of its own volition.

 _Smile, Molina, no one wants to know that you’re freaked out by your boss_.

Boss?

“Julie.” Luke, again, closer this time, almost to the bench. There was sweat on his brow, like closing the distance was physically tiring him, but he pressed until there was only half a foot between them. His eyes were intense and her head, her pulse, pounded to the music flooding her brain. He said her name again and leaned closer. She strained toward him, but it was like there was a rope around her waist and someone she couldn’t see held the end, held her back from moving where they didn’t want her to. And they didn’t want her to get to Luke.

“Luke,” she said, her jaw aching and facial muscles sore.

“Julie.” There was just a few inches between them now. “Julie, _wake up._ ”

~~

There were lights on in the studio. She could see it from the path that lead from the house. The boys must still be doing something, so that was good. She’d have to remind them that her dad still thought they were holograms and that they couldn’t keep the lights on at all hours, but at least they weren’t playing music.

Hesitantly, fingers clutched together against her stomach, she stepped through the gate and made her way down the steps. The bushes and trees around her were green-black in the night, moonlight shining off one or two leaves that were particularly smooth, and she breathed in the night air in deep lungfuls. She didn’t come out here this late at night very often, but right after her mom was gone it would help calm her down when she felt like she was being tossed and tumbled through a wave, drowning and choking with sand in her eyes and salt in her nose and no way to know how to escape.

After her dream, being pulled out of the ocean was exactly what she needed.

Once she reached the bottom of the path, she halted and stared at the double doors of the garage, the light streaming through their windows, the way the shadows shifted across the scene. Would they even want to see her? She’ll just peek through the windows and make sure everything was okay. That would work, that would be enough.

She stepped up to the doors and put her hand against one of the windowsills, raising up on her toes to look inside. She expected to see the boys sprawled on the couches talking or playing some game or fiddling with their instruments, their songwriting journals. Instead, she saw Alex and Reggie planted side by side on the couch as Luke paced between the keyboard and the drum set. They were dressed like they were going to bed, sweatpants and sweatshirts, Alex’s fanny-pack was gone, Reggie’s flannel discarded on a chair near his bass, and she wondered if they could sleep, now. They couldn’t before, as far as she knew, but they also couldn’t touch her before. Who knew what else had changed?

That didn’t matter. What did was that her boys were there in the studio, not in Caleb’s club, and she had her cozy bed to return to, and not a cool, masterfully crafted grand piano to sit at.

Julie exhaled. Everything was fine.

Luke pivoted around as she watched and their eyes met through the window. His went wide and immediately she ducked below where he could see her and jerked back from the door. Crap! He wasn’t supposed to _see_ her.

“Julie!”

Before she could continue her hasty retreat back to the house, the doors to the studio swung open and there he was, darting to her with a desperate, concerned expression and stopping just short of colliding with her. At his sides, his hands curled into fists and his elbows bent a fraction, and she didn’t care how he knew that she needed a hug, just that he did.

She held her arms out to him.

Frantically, he stepped closer and reached for her shoulders as she did his waist, and when her arms closed around empty air, she hugged them to herself and crouched until her knees pressed into her chest. Of course, of course it would all be temporary. A sob choked out of her throat and she pressed her forehead to her knees, placed her hands on the pavement. It was rough under her palms, nothing like the smooth ivory of the piano keys, and she shifted her weight further on her hands until the grain of the concrete almost hurt as it dug into her skin.

“Julie, God, Julie,” Luke said, his voice near her ear. He must be crouching next to her. “Julie, it’s okay. You’re right here, you’re okay.”

She looked up at him, then, watched the way his hands hovered around her, like he wanted to touch her, and had to look away again. It was too much, it was all too much.

“Julie,” Alex sat cross-legged in front of her, hands in his lap and leaning toward her with concern knitted in his brow. “What happened? What’s going on?”

As Reggie sat next to Alex, she listened to the sound of Luke’s hand phasing through her shoulder over and over again, felt the slight chill that always came with the phase. Rather than think about that, she focused on the toe of Alex’s shoe sticking out from under his knee. “Nothing’s wrong, I just had a nightmare. I needed to check on you guys. Everything—everything’s fine.”

Luke stood, she could hear the scuffing of his shoes on the driveway as he stepped away from her and could imagine that he was pinching the bridge of his nose. Angrily, he said, “You were the one he got, Julie, why would you need to check on us?”

“Why would I—do you know how stupid you sound right now?” She chanced another look at him. He stood a few feet away, hands on his hips, watching her earnestly, if a bit agitatedly. “I couldn’t let him get you guys _again_.”

“ _You_ were the one with the stamp,” he insisted, stepping forward and gesturing to his forearm. There was something sparking in his eyes, anger, but not at her, she didn’t think. At least, not because of anything she did. “He wasn’t going to get us, he was going to get _you_.”

She stood, her frustration burning over her fear. How dare he question this? For starters, it was _her_ nightmare, not his. And, she was right; if Caleb got them again—

_Don’t go there, Molina._

She raised her chin, folded her arms over her chest. “Better me than you.”

He stepped up to her and shook his head. “No, not better—”

“Guys,” Alex said.

“Yes, better,” she said and glared at him. “How do you even know about any of this? It was my dream.”

“ _Our_ dream, I saw it too.”

No, no, no, no, no. This was _bad_ , what if Caleb had seen him? Her eyes widened, she searched his face for a hint that he was messing with her and found none. Gosh, _what if Caleb had seen him?_

He hadn’t.

She had two options: curl back into her ball and panic over what _sharing dreams_ meant, or get really angry. Panic meant more failed attempts at touching her, comforting her, and anger meant she got to let everything out. The fireball of emotions in her chest was burning her up from the inside and she could smother it, or she could let it out; she couldn’t let it keep festering.

“Boundaries!”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Yes! Stay out of my head!”

“Julie—”

“Guys!” Alex said again, and he was there next to them, clapping both of them on their shoulders. His grasp was firm and reassuring and he squeezed her shoulder when she glared at him. “What is going on?”

Wait. How was he touching her?

“Julie dreamt she was part of Caleb’s band,” Luke said and she covered her face with her hands.

“Oh my God,” Alex said.

“What is happening right now?” She whispered.

A second hand gripped her other shoulder. Through her fingers she could see the tips of Luke’s shoes inch towards hers. His voice was low and quiet when he spoke. “Julie, hey, look at me.”

She shook her head. “Hey, hey, hey, Julie, c’mon.” Alex’s hand slipped away, and Luke, clasping both her shoulders, now, stepped even closer. The faint heat of his body—not quite as warm as a human’s but definitely warmer than when he was intangible—radiated toward her, comforting and reassuring. Everything in her dream besides those freaking lights was cold—the piano, Caleb’s hand on her cheek, even the band members who danced close to her. Luke was warm and solid and whispering soft words to her. “It’s okay, you’re here with us, with me, in the studio. Caleb doesn’t even know where this is, he can’t get you here, we won’t let him. We won’t let him get us again, either.”

She chanced a glance at him. His brows were furrowed together, his eyes worried, but when they made eye contact, the corners of his mouth tilted up in a small smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He nodded.

“Okay,” she said and stepped into him, her arms tightening around his waist as his looped around her shoulders. His chin rested lightly on the top of her head and she closed her eyes as she pressed her face into his chest. His shirt smelled musty, its twenty-five years in a plastic bag hanging on valiantly, but underneath it she could smell whatever soap he had used when he was alive and the clean scent of sweat after a performance—the boys must’ve kept practicing with the amps on 1 after she left to go to bed. Of course they would. The thought made her smile.

There was a hand against her back, rubbing soothingly, after a few moments, and Alex said, “Hey, why don’t we go inside to talk about this?”

For a moment, she stood and relished in the feeling of Luke’s arms around her, Alex’s hand smoothing up and down her back, Reggie’s fingers slipping between hers. She could _touch_ them, actually touch them, not just phase through, not just stand near, but physically _touch them_.

No one was taking that from her.

She nodded and took a small step back. “Yeah, okay.” Alex smiled softly at her. “Let’s go talk.”

~~

He couldn’t fathom Caleb marking Julie, but he’d seen it with his own two eyes. Sure, it was in a dream, but the stamp was there, purple and swirling on her forearm. She’d even _acted_ like a member of the house band, smiling brightly at the audience, playing in time and without missing a beat no matter what was happening, treating Caleb like he was in charge.

It made him want to break something.

The only things to break around here were their instruments and stuff that belong to Julie’s mom, so he draped his arm around Julie’s shoulders, tucked her into his side as they sat on the couch, and clenched his jaw as she and Alex and Reggie talked through the dream.

Their dream.

“Basically, I was playing the piano for Caleb’s band,” she said, and Luke’s hand squeezed into a fist atop her shoulder.

“Wait, how do you know it was Caleb?” Alex asked.

Julie shrugged. “I have no idea, I just saw this guy in one of those old-time, fancy suits, something in my brain clicked, and I knew it was him.”

Alex glanced at Luke and he nodded. It was Caleb, alright. If he ever saw that bastard again…

“I was wearing this flapper dress, or something. It was yellow and covered in feathers and I think I had a headband…” Luke nodded again. “And everything was so loud. I was playing perfectly and knew I couldn’t mess up or _something_ would happen. I had to keep being perfect. It was like performing was the only thing that mattered; the only thing I could see was the band and the stage.”

“No audience?” Reggie asked.

“I mean, I knew they were there but mostly in the back of my mind.” She shifted next to him, not away from him but closer. Her body was warm and her hair smelled _so good_ , and Luke focused on that to keep himself from standing up and pacing again. “I never focused on them, just on making the music perfect.”

“Damn,” Reggie muttered and looked away.

Luke understood; one of the allures of Caleb’s offer had been the high of interacting with the audience. If Julie’s dream was anything akin to the truth and the audience was always a second thought…

If Julie's dream was true, that meant Caleb had her in his grasp.

Luke focused on a poster hung across the room, his teeth grinding together.

“I was playing and worrying about Caleb and then Luke was there,” Julie said. “I was confused because you guys were supposed to have escaped, but then the song ended and Caleb was coming over. I don’t think he noticed you, Luke, but he wanted me to focus on the performance. Then we started the next song and Luke got me to wake up.”

The boys were silent, sitting across from them on the coffee table, and Luke waited for Julie to drop the final blow. She didn’t.

“I don’t—how is this possible?” Alex said, leaning back and stretching his legs out. “We’re _ghosts_ , aren’t dreams supposed to be a completely different freaky, supernatural thing?”

Reggie looked contemplative. “I mean, did we really rule out the idea that Julie’s a witch?”

Alex hit him in the arm while Luke hissed, “Reg!” but Julie laughed. It was a little wet and didn’t last as long as he would’ve liked, but it was much better than the panicked expression he’d glimpsed through the window earlier.

“Not a witch, I promise, though that might be useful if Caleb’s some master ghost.” Julie laced her fingers together in her lap and sighed. “I don’t know if the ghost rules have ever really applied. Who’s to say what’s supposed to happen with ghosts and what isn’t? I mean, before you guys died, did you ever think that ghosts and music went together?”

“No,” Alex said.

“Not really,” Reggie agreed.

“There has to be some rules, though, right?” Luke insisted. The idea that Caleb could get Julie, a lifer, did _not_ mesh with the few things he’d worked out in terms of afterlife guidelines. Then again, Caleb quite clearly flaunted those rules, and he and the boys didn’t fit in them, either.

Thank God for that. If they fit into typical ghost rules, they never would’ve met Julie.

He frowned. “Some lines that can’t be crossed? I mean, he put his _stamp_ on her.”

Alex’s eyebrows rose. “He stamped you?”

Julie’s hand gripped her forearm where the stamp had been. Luke squeezed her shoulder, pulled her a little further into his side.

“Yeah. I don’t have it now, though.” Her voice was quiet when she spoke and his heart contracted in his chest. She sounded so scared; he hated that he didn’t know what to do to make it better. She pulled her sleeve up and showed them.

Reggie leaned closer to take a look, gripping her arm lightly as he inspected it, and Alex exhaled, twining and untwining his fingers together. “What does this even mean? What are we going to do? Do you think Caleb’s really gotten her?”

Julie looked at him then, her face solemn and worried. He wanted desperately to smooth her brow out and to make her smile, but they needed to figure this out. Caleb wasn’t taking her from them, from him. Against his thigh, his hand found hers and he linked their fingers together. The corners of her eyes squinted, as close to a smile as he would get under the circumstances, and she squeezed his hand.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ve gotta figure it out,” she said, turning back to look at Alex and Reggie. There was determination in her voice now, it was stronger and a little louder and reminded him of when she would reach the pre-chorus in a song, confident and assured. “I’m more worried about him getting control of you guys again. And I’m not gonna let that happen.”

~~

Across the parking lot, the school bells rang, signaling the end of classes. He paced worriedly between two cars, his skateboard in hand, his helmet abandoned on the grass beside Julie Molina’s dad’s car. Would she be able to see him? Would she know who he was? Would she even want to talk to him knowing what he had done to Alex and the band?

None of that mattered. He had to tell her she’d appeared in the Club last night.

She’d just been an apparition, standing in a corner of the backstage, staring into nothing, doing nothing, but she’d been there. When he’d walked past her, she felt like a ghost rather than a lifer, which was troubling, but when he’d tried to shake her, to get her to respond to him, his hand had passed right through her arm.

He’d almost lost his shit right there.

Lucky for him, the show had been finished for a couple hours, Caleb had sequestered himself in his rooms, and most of the ghosts had split. He’d masked her presence by standing in front of her and pulling out the big-ass map he used to mark where he’d skated in the city (he wanted to hit up the zoo and the boardwalk again) and none of the post-show crew had noticed her. When she vanished, it was like when ghosts teleported, and he heard the distinct sound of Luke calling someone’s name—Julie.

He hadn’t known who she was at first; whenever he’d gone to the Molina’s to spy on Alex, she’d been gone and he’d avoided all the places they performed at, besides that single visit to the Orpheum with Alex. When Luke had said her name, he’d put two and two together—the fact that she could see the boys, that her presence made them visible to lifers, that she’d been integral to them crossing over and somehow that cross over hadn’t made them disappear from this existence (Caleb would’ve sensed it and let him know; he was that kind of person)—and understood: Julie Molina had some _serious_ ghost powers.

It was decidedly _not good_ that she’d appeared in Caleb’s club, and as a phantom, no less.

And, so, he found himself outside her high school, hoping he wouldn’t run into any of the boys. As much as he wanted to see Alex again—staying away made his chest ache—he couldn’t be seen with any ghosts outside of the Club. Caleb had some freaky power among his array of abilities that let him sense ghosts’ auras or some shit like that, it was how he was able to tell when new ghosts appeared in the city and when they crossed over, how he’d been able to tell Willie had been keeping tabs on Alex. Caleb had told him once that ghosts’ presences lingered on each other, left a residue. With Alex, he would take no chances.

The doors at the school banged open and students flooded into the parking lot, loud and happy, and his stomach flipped.

What would happen now?

It only took a few minutes, but he saw her slipping between cars and making her way towards him. She was staring at her phone, scrolling through something, but slipped it into her back pocket and dug around in her bag for her keys. She was only a few cars away, this was the moment of truth.

Julie looked up and spotted him, and he swallowed. She frowned.

“Hey,” he said, once she’d gotten close enough. He was leaning against the driver’s side door and she stopped a few feet away from him.

“Hi.” She glanced around them, but luckily (for him) they were decently far away from the school and not many students were around to overhear.

“I’m Willie, a friend of Alex’s.” He offered her his hand (who knew what her ghost powers entailed?) and her eyes widened. “We need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wack 
> 
> I haven't planned this all out or written any more than this chapter, plus I'm in the middle of the semester, so updates will be sporadic 
> 
> my jatp tumblr is [juulies](https://juulies.tumblr.com) come scream w me!! 
> 
> xx


	2. you guys are gonna give me performance anxiety.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m just—so confused,” Julie said. “And a little scared that I’ve made this all up.” 
> 
> “Well, don’t be,” Willie assured her and winked. There was a brief moment of hesitation (or preparation?) where he stared at the sky, as if trying to recall something buried under years of memories and the back of her neck tingled, then he dug out a massive chunk of ice cream and brownie and stuck it in his mouth. She and Flynn watched him chew and swallow happily before going back for a second bite. 
> 
> “Oh my god,” Flynn said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter sponsored by italics 
> 
> the song for this chapter, but especially during luke's pov, is the acoustic version of "peer pressure" by james bay and julia michaels 
> 
> thank you to steph ([x](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomofme/pseuds/wisdomofme), [x](https://wisdomofme.tumblr.com/)) for reading through this for me! <333333

There was a boy leaning against her car.

He was tall, his hair was long, and his face looked like his default expression was a smile. The frown he was currently wearing didn’t fit. For a moment, she paused between two cars in the lot and watched him walk back and forth between her dad’s car and Danny Oaks’—he seemed agitated, which didn’t put her anymore at ease. Danny Oaks and his boyfriend (he was new and she hadn’t learned his name, yet) walked past, probably headed to said boyfriend’s car over Danny’s, and Danny said nothing. He didn’t look at the stranger, didn’t say anything as he walked past, didn’t react.

Okay, then.

There was a _ghost_ at her car, and he wasn’t one of hers.

She opened her messages and tapped her thread with Flynn.

> _2:27pm, to: flynnigan_
> 
> **there’s some random dude at my car**
> 
> **can u come meet me?**

Julie looked back at the boy. He held a skateboard in his hands, had the boys mentioned any ghosts that they’d met who skateboarded? She didn’t think so, they’d really only met—

She inhaled. They’d only met ghosts at Caleb’s club.

Her phone buzzed.

> _2:28pm, from: flynnigan_
> 
> **ofc omg**
> 
> **creepy**
> 
> _2:28pm, to: flynnigan_
> 
> **a lil**
> 
> **but i think he’s a ghost**
> 
> _2:28pm, from flynnigan_
> 
> **OH MY GOD**
> 
> **i’ll be there in like two**

Okay, Flynn would be here soon, everything would be fine, and the dream last night had been just that: a dream. Besides, Caleb seemed like the kind of person that did his own dirty work when it mattered, and the boys definitely mattered to him. This could be completely unrelated. Julie braced herself, switched to Instagram so she could pretend like she hadn’t stopped and watched him for a minute and a half, and headed toward the car. She put away her phone as she got a few cars closer, pulled out her keys, and finally met his eyes. His went wide and she frowned, her phone buzzing in her back pocket—Flynn again—he didn’t look like someone sent from an evil ghost to prey on his enemy, he looked—completely freaked out.

He stopped pacing and leaned against the driver’s side door. Great, she couldn’t make an easy escape, now. As her phone buzzed a second time, she stopped just inside the gap between her dad’s car and Danny Oaks’, close enough to the ghost that they could talk but far enough away that she could run if need be. Flynn better get here, quick.

“Hey.” His voice sounded nice, not creepy, but she couldn’t trust that.

“Hi,” she said automatically, and then glanced around them. If he was a ghost, no one would be able to see who she was talking to, and she really couldn’t afford to develop the reputation that she talked to herself. Lucky for her, no one was close by.

When she looked back at him, he gave her a shy smile. “I’m Willie, a friend of Alex’s.”

 _Oh my gosh._

He stuck out his hand (what was she supposed to _do_ with that?) and tilted his head. “We need to talk.”

She glanced down at his hand, extended between them, calloused and a little scraped up, and back at his face. If he was Alex’s Willie, and the likelihood that he wasn’t was slim, then he knew she effected ghosts in weird ways. His hand was offered like he expected her to take it and her stomach flipped. It had been a week since the show at the Orpheum and they still hadn’t worked out what made them tangible and what didn’t, it was absolutely random, and every time one of the boys phased through her, they got so sad. She didn’t know if she could handle it from this stranger—a stranger controlled by Caleb.

His eyes were worried, but hopeful. Internally, she sighed, then put her hand in his. The skin at the top of her spine started prickling.

“Julie, also a friend of Alex’s.”

Like the boys, he was warm, but not with the heat of a human body, and his palm was a little sweaty like he was nervous, and he gripped her hand firmly at first, and then a little harder as he realized that they could actually touch. When she smiled—it was probably more of a grimace—he let go and clutched at his board. Her hand fell to her side. “Um, what do you want to talk about?”

“Ah—”

“Jules,” Flynn said, and suddenly she was at Julie’s side. Julie glanced over at her. Flynn was looking Willie up and down suspiciously, eyes narrowed and lips pressed together. Wait, _Flynn was looking at Willie_. “I thought you said he was a ghost?”

Julie’s eyes shot back to Willie. How in the world was she going to explain this? “Um…”

“I am a ghost,” Willie said, his eyes darting between the two of them curiously. “Are you like Julie?”

“Do you mean ‘can I see ghosts?’ No.” Flynn nudged Julie until she looked over. “What is going on?”

After the night of the Orpheum show and discovering the boys practically dying in her garage, she’d sat down with Flynn the next morning and explained the whole touching thing. Then they’d trekked down to the studio, the boys fiddled around with their instruments until they figured out only one of them needed to be playing for other people to see them, and the five of them had had a long talk about the ‘freaky ghost thing,’ as Flynn called it. When they’d had a band circle (Flynn included) and Julie tried and failed to hold their hands, they spent the rest of the afternoon experimenting with different situations—surprise, high emotion, concentrating really hard like they did to move things in the beginning—nothing worked. There had been more experimenting since then and more sporadic moments when the boys were solid, but nothing was consistent and Flynn hadn’t ever been around when it occurred.

Apparently, when they were solid, ghosts could be seen by lifers.

“Flynn, look at this.” She held her hand out to Willie and, for the second time, he shook it. Flynn’s eyes went wide. Julie dropped his hand. “He’s a ghost, I promise I’m not pulling your leg, but this is exactly what I told you about with the guys!”

“Oh my god.”

“Wait,” Willie said, and she turned to him. “You can touch Alex—and Luke and Reggie?”

“Only sometimes.” She glanced at Flynn—how much of this should she tell him?—and Flynn shrugged. “Um, after the Orpheum, I thought they’d crossed over. They hadn’t, and I asked them to take Caleb’s offer ‘cause those jolts were—”

She looked down at her shoes; she would _not_ cry.

“Anyways, we figured out after that that I could touch them, sometimes.” She gave Willie a half smile. “It doesn’t always work.”

“That’s—shit that’s crazy.”

She gave him a close-lipped smile. “Yeah, a little. Uh—what did you want to talk about?”

The incredulous look fell off his face, replaced by something more serious and concerned. Her stomach flipped. “Let’s go somewhere else to talk about this.”

That couldn’t mean anything good.

~~

Computers were a piece of cake (the Internet was even easier) as far as he was concerned, so when the topic of the Carlos Problem came up, Reggie volunteered his services. “I’ll just sneak up to his room, leave a little note on his tablet thing, and then—boom! He’ll come talk with us.”

Luke, seated on the couch, looked dubious and Alex, fiddling with his drums, raised his eyebrows. Reggie glanced between them, incredulous. They had to know this was the easiest way, right?

“That kid is glued to his electronics. Everyday, as soon as he gets home from school, he picks it up! He’s either watching the YouTube, playing weird games, or doing ghost research,” Reggie explained, offering them his hands palms up in a ‘c’mon guys’ kind of way. They couldn’t doubt him, he was the Molina expert!

(Besides Julie, of course.)

He continued, “I’m telling you, his iPad is second only to ghosts, so if we use it to give him a message, he’ll definitely come talk to us.”

“Okay?” Luke said.

“Then what?” Alex asked, gesturing with a drumstick. “He comes down here to an empty studio, how are we supposed to have a conversation with him if he can’t see or hear us?”

“There’s an endless supply of paper around here.” Reggie gestured at the stack of blank notebooks Julie had unearthed from various places in the Molina household and deposited a few days ago in the studio for future use. “Luke shouldn’t be our scribe, but the kid knows how to read, right?”

Luke scowled. “Hey.”

“Let’s say that does work,” Alex interrupted, gesturing placatingly at Luke before he turned back to Reggie. “What do you want to talk to him about? There’s only so much we can tell him using notes.”

Reggie folded his arms, glad to be taken seriously, even if Alex was trying to persuade him out of it. He would see; they both would. “Well, clearly he knows that we’re ghosts; we can introduce ourselves.”

“Okay…” Luke still sounded unenthusiastic. “Then what?”

“We ask him to help us figure out our ghost powers.” Carlos would be excellent help—he was interested and innovative and open to all possibilities. He’d think of things the guys and Julie never would consider and before they knew it, all of their ghost powers would be revealed.

“You think Julie’s little brother—who is in _middle school_ —is gonna be able to crack the ghost code?” Alex asked.

Reggie raised his eyebrows. “You saw what he did with that chef ghost.”

“There was no chef ghost!”

“Besides, if we get him to help us out, that’s one less thing Julie has to stress over, right?” He suggested. Immediately, Luke’s spine went rigid. It was a dirty move on Reggie’s part—no doubt Julie would press and press them to figure it out just so they’d stop annoying her with it—but he needed the guys on board. There was no way they’d figure this stuff out individually, Willie had helped them in the first place, after all, and they would need human verification that whatever they’d end up being able to do worked.

Alex still looked unsure, but the wind seemed to go out of his sails when Reggie mentioned Julie.

He pressed his lips together, contemplating his next words carefully. No choice but to go forward, play his final move. “After her dream last night…”

“You’re such a little shit, Reg,” Luke said and slumped deeper into the couch, gesturing to the door. “Go.”

Reggie looked to Alex, who nodded despite his frown and folded arms. He gave his friends one last grin before poofing to Carlos’s room.

There, tossed haphazardly on his unmade bed, was Carlos’s tablet. Perfect. All Reggie had to do, now, was make sure he remembered the password correctly.

~~

Willie made the executive decision to discuss things over milkshakes. Flynn had no qualms about it and, once Willie dismissed the fact that he was a ghost and _couldn’t eat_ (“Don’t worry, Julie, I’m pretty sure you can make anything possible.”), Julie relented and they drove to the nearest fast food joint.

Flynn went with cookie dough, Julie got strawberry, and Willie chose mint brownie (“You can’t go mint chocolate chip—the ice cream makes the chips super hard and they get stuck in your teeth, which is _not_ where its at.”) and Flynn carried the cardboard drink holder over to a cement picnic table. The outdoor seating was deserted, thankfully, and Julie tried to ignore the flipping of her stomach as Flynn handed out napkins and spoons. They sat across from Willie and once the shakes had been dispensed, they both watched him carefully as he pulled his shake toward himself.

For a moment, he glanced up at them and a grin broke out across his face. “You guys are gonna give me performance anxiety.”

“This is wild,” Flynn muttered, focused intently on him. He’d proven in the car that he was a ghost, phased his hand through the front console and teleported himself from one backseat to the other, and Julie sporadically reached behind her seat—her focus mostly on the road—and he would smack her palm lightly with his fist. Why it was so important that she could still touch him, she didn’t know, but there was a link in her mind between that and the boys. Like the more Willie consistently made contact, the more hope brewed in her chest that the boys would manage as well.

“I’m just—so confused,” Julie said. “And a little scared that I’ve made this all up.”

“Well, don’t be,” Willie assured her and winked. There was a brief moment of hesitation (or preparation?) where he stared at the sky, as if trying to recall something buried under years of memories and the back of her neck tingled, then he dug out a massive chunk of ice cream and brownie and stuck it in his mouth. She and Flynn watched him chew and swallow happily before going back for a second bite.

“Oh my god,” Flynn said.

“This can’t be real.” Julie knew her eyes were likely wide as saucers and that she had a classic fish-out-of-water expression—slack jawed and gaping—but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Sure, when she’d asked him, Luke had told her about Caleb’s club and how they ate enough pizza to give a normal human indigestion, but he’d been very emphatic about the part where it could only happen in Caleb’s club. Knowing Luke and his obsession with standing in front of her open fridge to catch a scant _scent_ of their food, it must’ve been devastating to realize that his only chance of eating ever again was tied up in Caleb Covington.

This would blow his freaking mind.

“It’s very real,” Willie said and scooped another bite into his mouth. “And very delicious.”

“Jules, close your mouth.” Snapping her mouth shut, she glanced over at Flynn, who had her phone out and was filming the two of them on Snapchat. Flynn held up a peace sign and Julie managed a weak smile and little wave with her cup before Flynn flipped the camera to catch Willie as he continued to down his milkshake.

“Please don’t send that to anyone,” Julie said.

Flynn snorted. “It’s not like the guys have phones.”

“No Instagram.”

“ _I know_.”

Julie could hear the eye roll in Flynn’s voice, but she focused back on Willie, who looked, for the first time since they started talking, at ease. Like every other teenage boy she knew, he ate like a starved animal and was halfway through his shake before she’d had her second bite. Maybe they should’ve ordered food, too? Or at least fries? He stopped then, plastic spoon shoved deep in his cup, and shook his hair back from his shoulders, tilting his face up so it caught the afternoon sun, and sighed. She couldn’t blame him, the sun felt amazing on her back through her T-shirt and there was nothing as simple and pleasant as eating ice cream in good company. Knowing what she did about Caleb’s club—if her insights from her dream counted (and wasn’t that a terrifying thought?)—she wondered when the last time was when Willie had been able to just chill out.

Slowly, he looked back at Julie and Flynn and his expression turned serious, his fingers linking together in front of his cup. His stare bored into Julie’s. “I saw you—some version of you—at the Club last night.”

Flynn sucked in a breath, her hand clamping in a vice around Julie’s wrist. Julie’s heart stopped, again, in her chest. _Oh my gosh_.

“You’re messing with me,” she said, a nervous laugh escaping her lips. This could _not_ be possible; the dream was just supposed to be a dream! Everyone agreed it was just a dream, her, Luke and the guys, and Flynn when she’d explained it, but what reason would Willie have to lie? If this was some grand ploy on Caleb’s part, the dream immediately followed by Willie appearing in the school parking lot…“Did Caleb send you?”

Willie didn’t even look surprised that she didn’t trust him. “No, I swear he didn’t, and I swear I was the only one who noticed you.”

 _Gosh_ , what was freaking happening right now?

Breathing rapidly, she swung her legs out from under the table and leaned over her knees, her hands framing her forehead and narrowing her vision down to the square of pavement directly in her line of sight. It was cracked and jagged, one piece elevated slightly higher than the other, the crack full of green plants that always sprouted up in sidewalks and driveways. A pair of ants carried a crumb from someone’s meal and a potato bug scuttled past. Her chest continued to heave and she pressed her rings harder into her forehead. After a while, the ants had almost made it past the tip of her left shoe and Flynn started rubbing her back in slow and even strokes.

“What happened?” Flynn asked quietly.

There was a dandelion growing among all the leafy greens, bright and yellow and soft looking.

“The show was already finished and I saw her just standing there in the corner backstage,” Willie replied, equally quiet. “She didn’t respond to anything and my hand passed right through her when I touched her arm.”

“Isn’t that normal for ghosts?” 

The roly-poly had skittered off, but there was another set of ants weaving their way across the pavement.

“No, normally _we_ phase through lifers and they stay solid. That didn’t happen with Julie.”

Flynn’s hand reached the crook between her neck and her shoulder and squeezed. Julie focused on the dandelion, again. “So, she was a ghost?”

Willie made a clicking noise. “I don’t think so, she didn’t—and doesn’t—feel like how ghosts feel. Like, the energy around her, I mean.”

“Okay.” Flynn sighed and her hand slid to rest on the middle of Julie’s back. She started to count the petals on the dandelion, but they were so small she kept needing to start over. “Julie had a dream last night that she was part of Caleb’s band, or whatever he calls it.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.” Flynn’s hand rubbed a little harder. “Jules, do you remember what time you woke up.”

Time. The green-black of the garden, the cement digging into her palms, the lights on in the studio—she’d have to tell the boys off, later, ‘cause her dad could _not_ see the garage lit up at two in the— “Two o’clock.”

“That sounds right.”

Julie sighed and gave up counting the dandelion petals. After inhaling once, pulling herself back together, promising herself time _later_ , she straightened her spine and turned to slide her legs back underneath the table. She met Willie’s eyes head on. “What does this mean?”

“Nothing good.” He shrugged. “I’ve never heard of this happening before, Caleb taking so much interest in a lifer. I mean, right after he died he was obsessed with everyone he left behind but that was, like, a hundred and fifty years ago. He found me in the eighties, right after I came back as a ghost, and this has _never_ happened.”

The _eighties_? That made no sense, he looked seventeen, eighteen years old—maybe twenty if she tilted her head and squinted. “I’m sorry, you died in the eighties?”

“Nineteen eighty-four,” he said, nodding. A quick grin flashed across his face.“Lucky for me, too, ‘cause that book was one of the ones we were gonna read in my English class and George Orwell’s a dick.”

Her eyebrows rose and Flynn’s knee knocked into hers under the table. “You’d be in your fifties if you were still alive right now!”

He shrugged again, playing with the end of his spoon where it stuck out of his cup. “Alex and the guys have been dead for twenty-five years.”

“Yeah, but they said they went to this dark room or something after they died and then showed up in my studio.” She looked from Willie to Flynn. Ghost rules made _zero_ sense. “They said it felt like an hour or two passed, not twenty-five years.”

Willie nodded, understanding alighting in his eyes. “A dark room?” She nodded. He grinned and drummed his hands on the table a few times, an excited tilt to his mouth. “That explains _so_ much. That place is called the Interim. As far as I know, that’s where all the ghost magic happens.”

“Like, ghosts go there every time they do a weird ghost thing?” Flynn asked.

Willie shook his head. “Not exactly, sometimes it works like that, but it’s more like, um, a conductor. You know how cables will have a wire—copper or something—that the electricity runs on but it’s encased in rubber? It’s like that. When we’re just hanging out, not doing any weird ghost shit, there’s an insulator around the Interim. When we need to teleport, or something, the insulator disappears and we touch the live wire that is the Interim.”

Julie frowned. “What does the Interim have to do with the guys being dead for twenty-five years?”

“The Interim’s magic is time based,” he explained. “At least, I’m pretty sure it is. It mostly is. For you guys, just remember: Interim equals time.”

“Okay,” Flynn said dubiously.

“When ghosts actually, physically go to the Interim, time isn’t linear anymore. It eats ‘em up and spits ‘em back out wherever. For me, it was about five, six-ish years. For Alex—and the guys—it was twenty-five. When we just touch the Interim, it kind of compresses time.” With his hands he made a squishing motion, like he was playing an accordion. “When we teleport, the time it takes to move from one place to the next becomes nonexistent. It happens in an instant instead.”

As if to demonstrate, the space where he sat swirled and flashed and Willie disappeared, only to reappear on the bench next to where he had been sitting.

“Holy shit,” Flynn said, and that was the most shocking part of all; Julie could count on one hand the number of times Flynn had sworn in her presence.

There was a magical ghost space that acted like a live electrical wire, ghosts could bend the rules of scientific reality, Mom (if she ran with Flynn’s theory) likely manipulated that power to send the guys to her, and there was a maniacal ghost running around LA that knew the extent to which these powers could be stretched and had the animosity to use them.

Willie inclined his chin at her, a little smile tugging at his mouth. “Around you—” he cut himself off and his expression fell, his gaze focused on something past them for a few seconds, then his jaw clenched shut. Atop the table, his hands flattened. “Look, I’ve gotta go.”

“What? No!” Immediately, the residual panic over her dream fled, replaced by alarm and concern. Her chest turned tight and her heart started beating faster, again. “Willie, you can’t just explain something like that and leave, what am I supposed to tell the guys?”

He grimaced. “I know, and I would stay if I could, but that guy over there—” he stood, nodding past them to a man standing across the street (he wore a long grey trench coat and held a phone to his ear—or what looked like a phone—and hadn’t noticed them, even with Julie and Flynn whipping around to catch a glimpse of him), and his voice started wavering, “—he’s a ghost from the Club and if he sees me here, talking with you, Julie—”

“But—you have to go back to Caleb.” That sounded like the worst possible thing that could ever happen to someone, especially someone in Willie’s position. “I don’t—that shouldn’t happen, we should fix it.”

The smile he gave her was sad, but kind. “You’ve got some special powers, Julie, but I don’t think even you could break my contract.”

“Willie!”

He glanced in the direction of Caleb’s sentinel and stepped over the bench, drifting toward her dad’s car and his skateboard propped against one of the front wheels. “Tell the guys what I said, they should be able to get it. Alex will, at least. I think I’ll be able to come talk again. Not for a few days, though.”

“Friday,” Flynn said.

Julie glared at her. She needed to convince Willie _not_ to go back to Caleb. Picking a day to meet wasn’t helping. “Flynn!”

“Friday,” Willie agreed. He picked up his board, plopped his helmet on his head, took one last look at Caleb’s ghost, and smiled at them. “I’ll see you.”

Then he was gone.

~~

Carlos got home before Julie did, which Luke was _not_ expecting. Normally—depending on whether Julie walked, took her dad’s car because Ray was working from home, or got a ride from Flynn—she was home within a half hour of school getting out and either vibrating with energy or ready to collapse on the couch. Carlos’s middle school got out an hour later than the high school did and Luke was bursting at the seams by the time 3:45 rolled around and they heard the front door open and slam shut. The combined power of Alex and Reggie’s stares from their position on the couch was the only reason he wasn’t scouring the streets surrounding Julie’s school. She’d come home late several times over the past couple of months, but she’d always told them before she left in the morning. And after the dream last night…

He felt like yelling.

“Luke, it’s going to be fine,” Reggie said. “She probably got held up talking to a teacher or in some music thing.”

“Yeah, didn’t she say something about her class getting recruited to do the music for the school play?” Alex asked. She hadn’t and they all knew that.

Luke continued to pace.

“Maybe practices started early and she didn’t know,” Alex suggested. “Or, Mrs. Harrison wanted to talk to her about something music-related, like a showcase or a competition. This could be a good thing!”

“It doesn’t feel like a good thing,” Luke said, running a hand through his hair. It felt really, really bad—end of the world bad—and his stomach was pitting out. Where the fuck was she? “What if Caleb got her? Or sent a ghost to get her? Or the stamp _did_ show up and—”

“Alright, boyband!”

The double doors to the garage swung open to reveal Carlos standing between them, his iPad in one hand and a canister of salt in the other. Oh, god, not this again. Sure, Reggie’s idea had seemed like a good one at first, but the longer he thought about it and the longer it took for Julie to show up after school, the less he wanted to deal with whatever maneuverings they’d have to go through to talk with Carlos.

Without looking at them, he knew Reggie’s face was lit up with a grin and Alex’s lips were pressed into a thin line, resigned to his fate. Carlos stepped into the garage, holding up his iPad with the message Reggie had written on it. Luke stepped closer to read what it said.

> **We need to talk. Come to the garage after school. — the Phantoms**

He turned to Reggie and arched an eyebrow. “The Phantoms?”

Reggie raised his eyebrows back. “He doesn’t know our names.”

Luke turned away and walked over to where the blank journals were stacked. Alex and Reggie had one on the coffee table in front of them, but Luke pulled one off the pile and took it to the piano, leaving them to deal with Carlos.He could picture Julie sitting there, smiling as she sang, humming when he suggested a lyric or melody change she wasn’t sure about, running her hands over the keys without purpose—just enjoying the feeling of her instrument under her hands. 

“We’re Reggie, Alex, and Luke,” Carlos read. Luke glanced over his shoulder to see the notebook open on the coffee table, Carlos propped on his hands leaning over it. He pulled a pamphlet-looking thing out of his sweatshirt pocket and tossed it on top of the notebook.

“Shit,” Alex said.

Reggie picked the pamphlet up. “He found the booklet from the Sunset Curve demo their mom had.”

“Oh my gosh,” Carlos said, his eyes wide as he watched Reggie flip through the booklet. Luke could only imagine what it looked like, the pamphlet flipping through itself in the air. “I knew it! Here, here—”

Carlos snatched the pamphlet out of Reggie’s hands and opened it to show the group picture of the band. He tossed it down on the table again and spun it around to face Alex and Reggie. “Who’s who?”

Luke looked back at the notebook he opened on the piano lid and let Alex and Reggie handle it. The blank pages mocked him as he gripped his pen harder. Songwriting always had been an outlet, a way to distract himself, and he needed that badly, now. It hadn’t worked originally as the minutes ticked by after 2:30, but with Carlos here creating background noise with the guys, it might be enough to get his mind to stop worrying, stop obsessing over where Julie possibly could be.

“Okay, so—Alex, and Reggie—”

He tapped the pen on the paper. How to get it all out of his mind? He looked at the piano bench again and the image of Julie playing and singing there came to him—her lilac sweater, the sun streaming from the windows and creating a halo around her, stunning and picture perfect.

> _I find a photo…_
> 
> _I’m not sure what it’s doin’ there_

…taking over his every waking moment. He couldn’t find it in himself to be too upset about it, though, ’cause it was _Julie_ he was talking about, but never before had a crush been so inconvenient. Never before had a crush been so serious. That lilac sweater kept coming back to him, how pretty she had looked with those stupid plastic butterflies in her hair at the house gig and the way Flynn had gotten the lights to illuminate her in shades of pink and lavender in the garage, and the vibrant purple of her dress at the Orpheum. Those glimpses he’d caught of her amidst straining against Caleb’s hold, the way her eyes shined with _something,_ the panicked, tingling feeling in his chest at the thought of letting her down _again_ …

> _All I want_
> 
> _All I want is you_
> 
> _Your violet disposition_

There was a steady drum beat in his mind already, a tinkling that might be piano (or a flute? Where did _that_ come from?), but he knew that before he could incorporate _any_ of that, get the guys to work out any possible melodies, he needed to get all traces of Julie _out_ of this song or he’d never hear the end of it. With the lyrics not even written, yet, and her currently MIA, it seemed impossible.

Before his death, he’d always struggled through blocks, sitting for hours in the garage while the boys were at school, staring at the posters, the ceiling, the instruments just trying to get his mind to work; taking long-ass walks around the neighborhood and down to the pier to jog his brain. Eventually, something would click and he’d push through.

These past couple of months, he’d ask Julie and the block would just—disappear, like the key to his music was waiting in her hands.

And, right now, Julie was—

He flipped to a new, blank page and tore it from the binding.

Carlos yelped something from behind him, but Luke concentrated on the page, on keeping his hand steady, not rushing through his message just to get it out. His handwriting wasn’t worth shit and he _needed_ Carlos to be able to read this or he might go out of his mind. Once he finished, he took his paper, strode to the coffee table, ignoring Alex and Reggie’s protests, and tossed it down atop the pamphlet and the open notebook.

> **where is your sister?**

Carlos looked from the page to the couch and back, missing Luke’s eye. “What do you mean, where is my sister?”

“Exactly what I wrote,” Luke said, though he knew Carlos couldn’t hear him, and nudged the paper so Carlos would look at it again. “Where is she?”

“Luke,” Alex said from behind him.

Carlos frowned, his eyebrows scrunching together. “Um, probably at a school thing? You guys might not know this ‘cause you’re ghosts, but people have lives outside your little band.”

“Oh, is that how it’s gonna be?”

“Luke.” Alex yanked him down on the couch before he could do something even more stupid and Reggie scrambled with his pen and the paper.

> **bad ghost, we’re worried about her being gone for so long**

Carlos’s eyes went wide. “There’s more of you?”

Luke struggled to sit forward on the couch, Alex’s arm a steel band across his chest, but he managed. He leaned forward, a dark shade passed over his eyes, and something turned electric in his chest as he glared at Carlos. When he spoke, his voice echoed like he was speaking into a microphone and the amp it was connected to was nearby. “Call your sister.”

“Geez, okay! I will!”

The darkness dissipated and the buzzing in his chest stopped. Holy shit. Had Carlos heard him?

Alex punched him in the arm. “Asshole.”

He sat back in the couch, staring as Carlos pulled out his phone and dialed. “What the fuck?”

“What are we gonna tell Julie?”

Carlos tapped something on the screen and the dial tone filled the space of the studio. How was that possible? How could Carlos have heard him? He wasn’t playing anything, Julie wasn’t around, nothing added up. He rubbed at his sternum.

After three rings, she picked up. “ _What’s up, Carlos?_ ”

Something unraveled in his chest. She sounded tired and hoarse, but not like she’d been kidnapped away by a mad ghost dead-set on controlling all of them, and he slumped into the couch cushions.

“Look, I know we haven’t gotten to talk about this, but your ghost band is freaking out ‘cause you’re not home from school yet,” Carlos said, his eyes darting over the couch like he was trying to figure out exactly where they sat. He sounded put out and glared in their direction, but Luke was too relieved to hear Julie’s voice to pay attention to much of anything else.

“ _Ghost band?_ ” Her voice had gone high like it did when she was lying and felt awkward. “ _What are you—_ ”

“They said something about a bad ghost and one of them talked through the speakers,” Carlos continued and rubbed at his ear. So, Luke _hadn’t_ imagined the volume of his voice; that wasn’t troubling _at all_. “More like yelled through it, but, same thing. I know they aren’t holograms, Julie, and they’re freaking out.”

“ _Oh my gosh_ ,” then, muffled, “ _I’m going to kill them._ ”

Luke didn’t blame her.

“You can’t, they’re already dead.”

“ _Carlos!_ ”

Carlos sighed. “Look, do you want to talk to them, or something?”

Julie sighed, too, the static of the phone turning it fuzzy. “ _I guess. Are you okay if you just leave your phone in the studio for a few minutes? This’ll be kind of a private conversation._ ”

“Oh, so you’re gonna yell at them?”

“ _Carlos!_ ”

“Yes, yes, o _kay_ ,” Carlos said and set his phone on the table. “I’ll leave my phone. We’re not done talking about this, though.”

“ _Wouldn’t dream of it_ ,” Julie muttered and Carlos looked sharply in their direction one last time before turning and exiting the garage. Everyone was silent. The distant hum of the phone line echoed softly in his ears and Luke held onto it like it was a lifeline. That hum meant she was on the other end of the connection and not whisked away to Caleb’s club. The silence continued until they started shifting in their seats, Alex clasping and unclasping his hands, Reggie bouncing his knee, and Luke folding his arms tight across his chest. What was she going to say?

“Julie?” Alex asked hesitantly. “You still there?”

“ _Yeah, I’m here_ ,” she sighed and Luke wished they were having this conversation face to face. “ _I can’t believe you guys_.”

Alex looked down at his lap. “Yeah, me neither.”

“ _I mean, I figured Carlos suspected something_ ,” she said. “ _‘Cause he said something a little suspicious after the show at the Orpheum, I just—I wanted to figure out some way to tell him, plan it better than I did with Flynn._ ”

A beat of silence passed.

“ _What did you guys do?_ ”

Luke frowned and leaned closer to the phone, like if he concentrated on it hard enough he could get her to poof from wherever she was to the studio. The worst part of it all was that she didn’t sound angry anymore, just resigned, like there was something worse going on than this disaster. What had happened this afternoon?

“We wanted to introduce ourselves to Carlos,” Reggie muttered. “So we invited him to come down and talk this afternoon and Lu—”

Luke hit him in the arm.

“ _We_ were all worried about where you were,” Reggie finished, rubbing at his shoulder and shooting a glare in Luke’s direction. “Then, everything kind of went to crap.”

“ _Okay_.” Another sigh. “ _And the talking-through-the-speaker thing?_ ”

Alex and Reggie looked at him. He ignored them and tried to sound as nonchalant as possible; over the phone didn’t seem like the best situation to reveal new ghost powers, especially when they had already fucked up once. “We don’t really know what happened there, some more weird ghost magic.”

“ _Great_.” That sounded decidedly unenthusiastic. Luke exchanged glances with the boys, his worried expression now mirrored on their faces. “ _Look, some freaky ghost stuff happened this afternoon—_ ”

His heart rate spiked. “Freaky? Freaky how? Another dream thing?”

“ _No, no, not another dream—_ ”

He picked up the phone, held it closer to his face, and his voice came out more intense than she probably needed right then, but he couldn’t help himself. “Where are you right now? Are you safe?”

“ _I’m with Flynn, we’re driving home—_ ”

“Oh my god,” he mumbled and sat back.

“ _Luke, hey_ ,” she said, softer, gentler before, a tinge of emotion to her voice that wasn’t there before. Something in his chest settled. “ _I’m okay, are you okay?_ ”

 _No, not until I heard your voice_. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“ _Okay, good. Guys, this stuff isn’t something we can talk about over the phone, it’s serious._ ” He could picture her rubbing at her forehead, the little crease she got between her eyebrows. “ _I’ll be home soon, like twenty minutes._ Please _stay in the studio and just chill out. Don’t talk anymore to Carlos, try not to do anymore weird ghost magic, just—_ ”

“We will, Julie,” Alex promised.

“ _Thank you. Um, if you get worried again_ ,” now she sounded hesitant and Luke straightened up, “ _There’s one of the old home phones in the studio, probably by the CD player. It’s kind of like a landline, I guess, but it doesn’t have a cord, and I know I haven’t shown you guys how to use it yet but it works basically the same as a cell phone except you can’t text. I don’t know if my number’s programmed into it, but you know it, right? I mean, you’d have to ‘cause of the Orpheum and everything—_ ”

“Julie,” Luke said and she sighed, laughing a little. It didn’t sound happy.

“ _Right, anyways—call me using that, okay? If—if you need to._ ”

“We will.”

The call ended. A few seconds later, Carlos peeked back into the studio, hurried over to the table with a suspicious look on his face, gathered up his phone, and left.

Luke went to look for the home phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the song Luke's lyrics come from is called "violet" by bad suns. don't look too hard into it lmao 
> 
> whoever catches the perfect harmony ref gets a kiss from me 
> 
> if u have questions abt how the magic works, don't worry so do I 
> 
> next chap will come...sometime
> 
> come yell w/me on [tumblr](www.juulies.tumblr.com)


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